Conversation Soup

Kathleen Gunther

Have you noticed it’s the same people who whinge and complain about the rain and the cold on Facebook, are also in shock at the first sign of the heat in summer?

Could it be they just don’t have anything better to say?

Some brands are guilty of saying irrelevant things just for the sake of saying something. Telling me what the weather is like or asking me how my weekend was on Facebook is simply (boring) elevator conversation, if you ask me. I mean, we’re patronised enough by a lot of mass media advertising, so if I have chosen to engage with a brand, I need a reason to care.

I am quite selective with brands I like on Facebook, but a couple I have recently ‘liked’ have certainly lived up to my expectations. The first is Batlow Cider which gives me useful information like where I can purchase the product as the brand grows, the highs and lows of growing the apple harvest to make the cider and how it affects the Batlow community. Plus, it has a strong affiliation with music that I can relate to.

I’ve also ‘fanned’ a couple of my favourite music artists after seeing them live and have been given great content like a preview of a new album, discounts on songs, and competitions engaging fans to contribute to album covers etc.

The lower involvement products do have a harder task to involve and engage; but by keeping the content relevant, having a level of exclusivity, and humanising the people behind the brand to encourage a sense of community, then you will have a far better level of influence with your fans.

As the philosopher Plato is credited saying: “A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something”.

PS: For people living in Sydney – we have an average of a metre of rain (40 inches) each year, but few years are average years. There is no rainy season, and the rain usually goes quickly, but sudden storms can be common, and “showers” means downpours in some places and nothing a few hundred metres away. Learn to live with it.

Katie Palmer
There is a palpable sense in the industry that brands are all desperate to get themselves on Facebook as they feel that it is a social media ‘box’ that they need to tick on their marketing plans.
It’s a “box” because done well can provide a place for people who want to align themselves with a brand or a product can do so in an environment that they already engage with. By “liking” or commenting on a brands page, not only are they creating content for people within that page, but also providing the “inference of influence” (if I am allowing a brand to be included on my personal page it shows that I recommend it without me having to explicitly say so) for their friends within the social space.
But I also sense brands are not putting a resource value into building a facebook page as a place to genuinely interact and listen to their consumers. Only 5% of all posts on a brand page are answered by brands leaving their followers and contributors frustrated.
Neglecting to utilise the opportunity to connect with consumers can ultimately lead to less engagement with the brand and is the biggest reason so many of these pages feel like ghost towns populated by a junior brand manager asking fans on a Friday afternoon what they’ll be “getting up to on the weekend” but closing down the computer as soon as they hit “send”.
Just like a “site under construction” holding page in the context of the broader internet – unless you’re prepared to maintain your brand presence on Facebook, perhaps it’s best to leave that box unticked.